Photographing our Seas: Sharks and Sardines

Photographing our Seas: Sharks and Sardines

How do you make people care about animals often associated with sheer terror? Or those thought of mostly as a pizza topping? Marine biologist turned National Geographic photographer Thomas Peschak puts himself in precarious situations off South Africa's coast to help protect some of the sea's most misunderstood creatures.

Upcoming Events at National Geographic LiveThe National Geographic Live series brings thought-provoking presentations by today’s leading explorers, scientists, photographers, and performing artists right to you. Each presentation is filmed in front of a live audience at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. New clips air every Monday.

As a kid I used to dream about the oceans. It was this wild
place full of color and life. Home to these alien-looking fantastical
creatures. I pictured massive sharks ruling the food chain and graceful sea
turtles dancing across coral reefs. As a marine biologist turned photographer, I've
spent most of my career looking for places as magical as those I used to dream
about when I was little. And it's this journey that I wish to share with you
all this evening.

So, one of the most common questions I receive from people
is, “What is the most terrifying moment of your career?” Now, being in my shoes
at this moment must be really, really, really scary. And, you know, I'll be honest,
I am scared. I'm scared of over-exposing -I'm scared of under-exposing I'm scared
of getting the sharks out of focus and I'm scared that my editors are not going
to like a single picture that I'm taking. The sharks... they are probably the
least of my concern right now. And, you know, remember these are pretty small
sharks six foot at the most. So, if sharks are not the scariest part of my job,
well, what is? There's one creature that if it congregates in large enough
numbers, it scares the crap out of me. And this is what these creatures look
like. The scariest moments of my photographic career are without a camera, on a
stage looking over an ocean of people. You know, give me a white shark or a
Sharknado any day of the week. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, way ahead
of myself. And like with any good story, I think we have to begin right at the
beginning.

Now I began exploring bodies of water at a fairly young age.
Hey! They were a lot smaller than the ones I explore now but at that stage, I thought,
you know they were probably as exciting as the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean
are for me today. Let's fast forward. Today my photography is largely anchored
in conservation. And, you know, with conservation photography you have two
approaches. I call it the carrot and the stick approach. On the one hand, you can
showcase them the most amazing places on this planet and make them go, “Wow!” I
could not believe a place like St. Joseph Atoll could exist. And hopefully they
make a connection with it. So, for half the year, I have this incredible privilege
to document some of the most amazing marine realms on our planet. However as a photojournalist,
I need to document the reality of our relationship with the oceans. So, for the
other half of the year, I document, what I sort of call the darker side of our
relationship with the sea. Whether it's over-fishing the impacts of climate change
or oil-spills. But I always feel like I walk a very fine line between inspiring
and disturbing.

When young photographers always ask me, “What is, sort of,
number one tip you can give me?” I always say, “Begin in your backyard. Begin
with a subject and a place that you are intimately familiar with and a place
that you can go back to again and again and again.” In South Africa, I had a pretty
sexy backyard. I mean, I was lucky. And my first, sort of, real reportage story
was about great white sharks. You know, 12 years ago, I mean, when I shot this this
was the, sort of, standard white shark image. You know, focus on the teeth, aggressive,
dangerous, wild and these sort of pictures are easy to take. However, the more
time I spent out at sea with them the less I felt that that picture was
accurate. Instead of the aggressive, you know, dangerous white shark, I was
seeing an inquisitive, and very often, curious creature. The image that follows
is the one picture that I think best represents the white shark to me. And this
was taken on one of those wonderful winter days the water was clear, the sea
was calm and you know this white shark came across this little box-jellyfish. And,
I thought it would either swim through it or just ignore it and for a few
seconds this white shark actually almost hovered. As if it was transfixed by the
light on the tentacle and it just kinda, you know, hovered there and just
looked, as if going “Hello, what are you?” And, you know, after she had satisfied
her curiosity that's a three and half year female by the way she just kind of,
you know, turned back and went back into the depths. And that is, sort of, how
I know great whites, not with the images before.

My next reportage was also in southern Africa again. But the
focus here is on sardines. Now, sardines are a cold water fish and they prefer
the west and south coast where the water is colder. However, once a year something
unusual happens. We have this warm current on the east coast called the Agulhas
current. And, once a year it kind of moves offshore. And these sardines migrate
with this cold water northwards. And we call this the sardine run. And, you
know, sardines, heavily over-fished over the years and this is a species that really
needs the conservation attention but everyone thinks it lives in tin cans. It's
not just the fishing fleets that follow these sardines. There's a whole suite
of predators that follows them as well. Common dolphins, they carve smaller pieces
of sardines off the massive shoals and they pin and herd them up to the
surface. And, you know, there they form the holy grail for all photographers. The
bait ball. I've done the run for eight years. I've seen three. So, the dolphins
herd the sardines and they take turns, you know, one after the other they'll
rush in grab a sardine and swim out and take turns like that amazing
cooperative behavior there. But for me, sardine run it's all about sharks. Now,
when there's no dolphins, these sharks have a really hard time. They get
sardine donuts, as we call them. Mouths full of water most of the time. When
the dolphins are there the sardines tend to be herded together much more
closely.

Working with sharks on the run is a little bit spicy at
times. Especially, at the end when there's very few sardines left they treat
you like another shark. So, you get bumped and hit probably every ten-seconds. And
if you want to get good pictures you just have to ignore the sharks knocking
into you. Most of the time I know I'm not on the menu. These sharks feed on
small sardines. But I had two encounters, one, I had a large dusky shark
rip-off my fin and swim away with it. “What's that all about? Why does that
shark need another fin, I... I have no idea.” And then another one, I had two
bronze whaler sharks each hanging on to my underwater strobes and I felt like a
Ukrainian weight-lifter. They obviously like, when the strobe recycles there
seems to be an electro-current that kind of you know, gets pushed out, so they they
love biting on those things. This is my favorite sardine run photograph. For
two reasons. One, it was in clear water and you know, it looks like the shark
is inhaling the sardines. And right after this, he basically swings around and comes
at me. You can see these little sardine heads and tails sticking out it's like
an over-stuffed suitcase with the clothes hanging out. That's what that
reminded me of, it's just one of those you know, interesting visual scenes
there. But, yeah, you know, that's one of those images you know, once every
eight years, if you're lucky. At the end of the, you know, bait ball when
there's few sardines left, where do they wanna go? In between your legs, under your
arms, around your head. The sardines are seeking shelter around you. Which is a
really, really bad place to be not just because of the sharks. And there's
actually a bigger danger on the run.

I'm photographing and I'm looking at screen at something and
as I look up, all the predators are gone. You know, it's just me and the
sardines and we're looking at each other going, “What just happened?” You know,
they're too stunned to actually swim away 'cause they don't know what's going
on. That just doesn't happen. Instinct kicks in and I go, I'm going where
they've gone. I am back-paddling, I'm swimming out of the bait ball and... this
guy comes rocketing out of nowhere. It's a Bryde's whale, and... He comes up
and pretty much in front of me, swallows the entire bait ball. I'm probably a
foot or two away and as he does that he arches upwards and then he pretty much just
leaves the water. I mean, they have all this energy and he leaps out of the
water two-thirds come up and I am, more or less right at the left where the sardine
is leaping out. And... I'm going, “Oh, crap...” So, I curl into this little
ball and I'm waiting for the sound of hearing my own bones break. But I've been
trained well. I'm still shooting. And the next picture I have no recollection. I
have no memory, but I have this. So, this is all the water streaming out of the
Bryde's whale's mouth. And, I don't remember this. Somebody else could have
taken this. It was in my camera at the end of the day. It's very hard to see, you
know, in stills. So this is sort of, some video of a colleague of mine. You get
the idea of the whole... how quick and how crazy that bait ball actually is. Imagine
trying to get still pictures in that. And you have to be where those sharks
are. You have to be one of those sharks, to get the pictures. So, it gets a bit
crazy at times but... And this is where the birds are just, you know couple of
sharks. And here comes the Bryde's whale. So, now you get an idea, sort of, what
your environment is like. And you sort of just have to... have to just, you
know forget about all that stuff and just focus on the task at hand which is
getting great images.

Photographing our Seas: Sharks and Sardines

How do you make people care about animals often associated with sheer terror? Or those thought of mostly as a pizza topping? Marine biologist turned National Geographic photographer Thomas Peschak puts himself in precarious situations off South Africa's coast to help protect some of the sea's most misunderstood creatures.

Upcoming Events at National Geographic LiveThe National Geographic Live series brings thought-provoking presentations by today’s leading explorers, scientists, photographers, and performing artists right to you. Each presentation is filmed in front of a live audience at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. New clips air every Monday.